Immersion Suit for use with the DSEA Escape Set

The BBC newsreel from 1950 below shows a new submarine escape suit being put through its paces by the Admiralty in Portsmouth and is almost identical to a Pathe newsreel shown in cinemas at the time. The precise date is unclear, but certainly in winter as the assistant is wearing a black cap. One must assume the intent was to get as much exposure to the public of this topic as possible, what the motive of the Admirality was, is not clear. However perhaps many Royal Navy News Reels were produced about this time and I am simply unaware of them.

BBC video not available in all countires due to broadcasting restrictions

I was taken completely by surprise by the content of the newsreel as I did the DSEA course on the 8th of December 1949 (recorded in my Certificate of Service S.1243) and there was nothing like it. The tank shown is the old 15 foot tank. There also a quite separate simulation of the two man escape chambers fitted fore and aft in the Group 1 T Class boats (which included the Thetis) and Group 1 S Class boats, but not the more numerous WW2 Group 3 T Class.

This is how I would have looked trying to draw the instructors attention to my empty oxygen bottle.

The first time I went through the chamber I discovered, as the water rose in the chamber above my head, that my DSEA set was fitted with an empty oxygen bottle! Much banging on the 'Sight Glass' eventually brought attention! This was the only time I attended the Submarine Escape School in my time in submarines that terminated in 1955 on my leaving the Royal Navy. This despite numerous writers saying all submariners attended the course annually.

All we had to wear was a thin cotton slip that tied round the waist like swimming trunks. I note for the newsreel smart swimming trunks were used. The date of the video is ambiguous, but in the region of February-April 1950. The outside shot of the T Class boat shown, has the wind breaker and periscope standards painted a cream colour which was gone on all boats by the summer of 1950 and painted all grey, and note the assisant in submarine uniform is wearing a winter black cap.

Trainees wearing DSEA waiting to enter the chamber within the 15ft tank (1942)

Trainees having escaped form the chamber line the top of the 15ft tank

I recommend the reader look carefully at the pages from Subsunk a book by Commander Shelford RN, who had a long career concerned with submarine escape and diving in the Royal Navy. In particualr note how disturbed he was to hear of the loss of the Truculent and the lack of immmmersion suits. (Note Shelfords comments on Page 220).

Subsunk: Page 218-219

Subsunk: Page 219-220

Subsunk: Page 220-221

I would remark that in reference to Admiral Raw FOSM's remarks to Shelford about his staff being too busy with submarine escape to be able to get the submarines to sea to escape from, as being facetious and not approriate for an Admiral.

The reality was, I joined Truncheon 20th of April 1951 when she was engaged in Submarine v Submarine excercises North of Scotland as described in my Commentary on the book The Silent Deep, leaving her 21st September when she went into Chatham Dockyard to be converted, a major refit that took years. It would appear that FOSM obviously had staff to deal with this complex matter of conversion, that also involved a parallel conversion of Totem that had entered Chatham Dockyard in March 1951.

As is well known, the Jan 1950 loss of the Truculent caused a fresh official look at the whole escape business. The 100ft tank was was commissioned in 1954, with the first students trained in July of that year, according to the history, using Free Ascent (that is no DSEA set just a nose clip). Also according to the history, the first Immersion suit was brought in service in 1954-1965

The escapee is shown floating in a horizontal position on the surface of the 15ft tank, with the immersion suit inflated

I am baffled by the Admiralty promoting and facilitating these newsreels, as it shamelessly shows that an immersion suit that was NOT available to the Truculent escapees, many of whom would likely have survived if it had been! Again I refer the reader to Commander Shelford, In 1953.

In the fore ends of Amphion near to completing refit in dry dock, Portsmouth, we had a demonstration of an immersion suit by an escape coxswain. These were busy times for a PO Electrician re-commissioning and I am afraid I have no recollection whether this suit was the type with a DSEA suit or one for a new method of free ascent being practiced in the new 100ft tank, but in the following two years on Amphion before I left the RN, as far as I recall nobody from the boat went through the 100ft tank, not surprising as I suppose it would take a long time to get everyone in the S/M service through the tank starting from scratch in 1954.

As far as I been able to acertain, the Mk2 immersion suit was not issued until the escape method of Free Ascent was able to be practiced in the new 100ft tank completed in 1953 and progressively this method was adopted and the DSEA sets removed from Royal Navy submarines. For reasons that I can only speculate on, in later years, there was an escape procedure using the compartment and twill trunk called the the Rush Escape. However it has no relevance to an immersion suit specifically for use with a DSEA set, the topic of this article.

That completes my personal experience with submarine escape training as it relates to the content of the BBC Newsreel, and I conclude by reiterating I am surprised that they filmed and distributed this only a short time after the loss of the Truculent where DSEA sets were used to escape, but no immersion suits had been issued to prevent death by hypothermia.

The BBC newsreel was filmed in a number of locations in what is certainly the submarine base of HMS Dolphin. Obviously it was not practical to flood the submarine as in an actual escape and once the escapee is shown entering the twill trunk, the camera moves to escape hatch simulation open to the water of the 15ft training tank and then to the surface.

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Peter Hulme

Peter D Hulme served in RN submarines from 1949 to 1955. Peter now lives in New Zealand and is retired after a career in Public Power Distribution including some 5 years as NZ Railways Electrical Engineering and business consultant to GM Engineering.

Acknowlegements to John Eade for research into Commander Shelford's book Subsunk

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By its underwater nature, the submarine service remains one of the more perilous jobs in the Royal Navy. Advanced technology means that today's nuclear-powered vessels can now remain 120 days without surfacing and deliver a cruise missile with pinpoint accuracy to a target 400 miles away. There are also hundreds of checks constantly carried out on board and improved training for modern submariners. But there is always the potential for disaster

On the 12th January 1950, HM Submarine Truculent spent the day at sea off the Thames Estuary carrying out trials, following a long refit. Apart from the full crew, there were 18 civilian dockyard officials on board to make any last minute adjustments, as she was due to sail for Scotland the next day. As she made her way up to the Medway Approaches, the Officer of the Watch conned the submarine on the surface. Traffic in the river was heavy and the steaming lights of many ships on their way into and out of the Port of London were clearly visible on all sides.

DESA Escape Chamber

HMS Truculent

Truculent

In 1950, when HMS Truculent sank following a collision with a merchant vessel within sight of the British shore a total of sixty-seven men made their escape from the sunken submarine, and this figure excludes the bridge party which had been swept into the sea tat the time of the collision.

This exodus was a resounding triumph for both, the Davis Escape System and the Submarine Training Program. Yet only ten men survived to be picked up alive. The rest were swept away by the tide and died of either drowning or exposure. What had been a triumph had become a tragedy

DSEA

The Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus (also referred to as DSEA), was an early type of oxygen rebreather invented in 1910 by Sir Robert Davis, head of Siebe Gorman and Co. Ltd, inspired by the earlier Fleuss system, and adopted by the Royal Navy after further development by Davis in 1927. While intended primarily as an emergency escape apparatus for submarine crews, it was soon also used for diving, being a handy shallow water diving apparatus with a thirty-minute endurance, and as an industrial breathing set.

DSEAs remained in service until a comprehensive 1946 Royal Navy inquiry found that there was no difference in the survival rates between those who escaped stricken subs with or without them. The DSEA, arguably the first re-breather escape system to be mass produced, was subsequently dropped in favour of the so-called 'blow and go' technique.

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